Creative Campaigns That Actually Work

I think its safe to say that the majority of GFMers are suckers for super creative, out-of-the-box, thank-god-I'm-not-one-of-the-models marketing and PR campaigns. We love reading about them, we love brainstorming for them, we love executing them and we love pushing our clients out of their comfort zones. Of course, we do have one big caveat... the campaigns have to actually work. Unleashing street teams in clown costumes might sound creative (This is just an example. We never did a campaign involving clowns. Ever.), but it doesn't mean squat if it doesn't meet your overall program objectives.

Through the years, I've had the opportunity to witness and participate in many such campaigns. (You can read about one of my personal favorites during the launch of Coors Light's Cold Activated Bottle here.) Yesterday I stumbled across another one by Chik-Fil-A. If you missed it on your calendar, last Friday was Cow Appreciation Day at Chik-Fil-A restaurants across the country. The one-day promotion, an extension of its popular "Eat Mor Chikin" campaign, promised free meals to anyone who showed up a Chik-Fil-A restaurant wearing a cow costume. Apparently, the results were great and allowed Chik-Fil-A to capture many great snapshots of their customers in full moo regalia. MediaPost has a great write-up on the campaign here.

What about you? Do you have any favorite creative campaigns that actually delivered results? I'd love to hear about them!

Owen's Wish Comes True (in a galaxy not so far away...)

Thank you very much to everyone who has been sending get-well wishes to my son Owen over the past several months. We are very excited that his latest scans look great with no new cancer since the end of chemo. As many of you know, Owen was diagnosed with a malignant form of kidney cancer that had metastasized and spread to a couple of other spots in his body…but the surgery, radiation and chemotherapy have been effective and he is doing very well. Yaay, Owen! I truly appreciate how much support Lisa and I have gotten from so many people during this – from family, friends, current colleagues, former colleagues and friends of GroundFloor.

Our Make-a-Wish trip to Disneyworld for Star Wars weekend was fantastic and Owen had so much fun. He and Sela got to meet Darth Vader and Princess Leia and Anakin and so many other Star Wars characters. Owen even got to go on the Star Wars ride with the entire Star Wars Cantina Band!

Thank you to everyone at Make-a-Wish and Disney who put so much time and effort into making this an unforgettable experience for Owen. The chapter here in Portland (OR) has done so much for our family and for other families we have met at the children’s hospitals here…and I have heard wonderful stories about the wishes that the Denver chapter has granted as well.

For your viewing enjoyment, here are some photos of Owen’s Wish trip and of him playing with some of the goodies he got during his adventure. He’s pretty darn cute, huh?

--Rich (Miller)

Therapy Garden Healing the “Lost”

This past Saturday I visited a therapy garden with Cheryl Preheim of KUSA (NBC) at an organization called Lost and Found (www.lostandfoundinc.org). We were met at the front door by Loren Lichti, a counselor/therapist and an avid gardener. Lost and Found’s Transitional Living Program (TLP) emancipation program is based in Arvada and gives residential treatment support to emancipating youth who’ve typically come from the “system” (foster care, social services and/or youth corrections). The therapy garden was made possible by a $3,000 grant from the Colorado Garden Show.

Loren has worked with the young men in the TLP program to develop a therapy garden that includes natural space for one-on-one and group sessions. The garden has been carefully designed to incorporate flowers, vegetable and fruit bearing plants, bird houses/feeders/baths and seating areas. It is a vast improvement from the formerly weed-infested area. Loren told us it has been a slow process getting the guys outside to work with him in the garden. “Initially, the guys just watched, but after a few days, they decided to get their hands dirty and now they work in the garden 2-3 hours per day.” We spoke with several of the youth that morning which all have a tough story from serious addictions to broken families to mental health problems. One youth walked me through the garden and showed me various peppers and onions in his plot. He didn’t want to be on camera but mentioned he once thought gardening was for women but had changed his mind. “Now that my garden is growing, I kind of like coming out here. It is peaceful and I can think.”

Therapeutically speaking, remarkable things have happened in the attitudes and hearts of these young men. Loren shared a story about a young man who asked him how long the garden paths they created would exist as he wanted to know if, when he had a wife and kids, he could bring them back to show them the path he built. It was decided that all the garden paths would be named after the youth who built the path. Each path has a sign with the youth’s name, even the ones who have left. “It is kind of cool that when I leave a piece of me will be remembered here in the garden,” a youth told me.

It was an eye-opening experience to speak with these youth. I went home and hugged my kids. I also thanked my parents.

To learn more, check out the segment and interview with Cheryl Preheim here.

~Amy M.

Customer Service at its Finest

I love Seth Godin's blog, and his recent post about customer service is definitely worth sharing.

Enjoy...

When you least expect it.

I sent in a t-shirt order to Customlink a few weeks ago. Three days later, I got a note from someone named Lori that said, "Hi Seth,I noticed that you have designed shirts that appear to be for a charity event. If that’s the case, CustomInk would love to make a small donation to your team or to the charity itself on your behalf. Please let me know if your order is for one of these events. If you would like us to pitch in and support your cause, please include information about your charity event, a link if you have one or the organization’s name if there is no link to a team web page."

That's it. No policy, no standard operating procedure, no promise in advance. Just plain generosity.
It turns out that Customink does this as a matter of course, regardless of whether the customer has a blog or not. They don't do it as an inducement, they just do it.

Formula: The value of a perk is inversely related to the expectation of that perk.

Have a great Independence Day!

~Ramonna

HARO Happy Hour

Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting the illustrious Peter Shankman in person. He was kind enough to host a public relations gathering Saturday night while he was in Denver. I’m happy to report that Peter is as witty as his e-mails suggest, and he is a genuinely nice person. The Denver-ites had a lovely time playing pool and sipping cocktails at the Wynkoop Brewing Company. If you’re on Facebook, you can check out the photos at http://tinyurl.com/6ekdlz. While you’re there, you can become a fan of HARO (Help a Reporter Out), too! All of the PR folks I know rave about the leads they get from this free service from Peter.
~Ramonna

One Last Post About Online Viral Video...

Yes, I've written about online viral video twice in the past three weeks, but I can't help it. Blame it on Gatorade and NewTeeVee, not me. I've already admitted hundreds of posts ago that I was addicted to social media and yes, viral video is a big part of that addiction. So here is one last fix that I'd like to share with you and then I promise to switch to a new drug of choice (Twitter perhaps?).

Our friends at NPR's Talk of the Nation just did a great show focused on online viral video. Called Behind the Viral Video: What's Fake, What's Real, host Neal Conan and his guests explore how videos like the Gatorade one are able to become to popular. Take a listen here. It's about 30 minutes long, but it's worth it.

Okay, now I'm off to viral video rehab.

Gatorade Gets it Right

A couple weeks ago I did a post entitled "Viral Video Done Right". In that post, I talked about NewTeeVee blogger Liz Shannon Miller and her thoughts about what makes a successful viral video campaign. With Liz's thoughts in mind, I'd like to share another example of a viral video that I believe deserves some serious kudos.

If you haven't seen it yet, take a peek below:



Though you wouldn't necessarily know it just by watching it once, this video was done by Gatorade. (If you watch it again you'll see the Gatorade bottle by her feet.) Supposedly the original version included some text referring to Gatorade, but subsequent versions have lost the ad copy and it's now running like wildfire across the Internet.

Great job, Gatorade. Proof again that in order to be viral, keep your focus on entertainment, not necessarily marketing.

Digital media and marketing... the love affair continues

According to a recent survey by PRWeek and MS&L Marketing, the use of digital and social media in marketing campaigns is on the rise. Now, unless you've been living under a rock for the last five years (or doing PR for a really old-school type company), this information shouldn't surprise you in the least. In fact, it's kind of like me telling you that kids' desire for pizza is on the rise. However, if you dig a little deeper into the results (which PRWeek does here along with some great case studies), you might find yourself raising an eyebrow or at least feeling vindicated. For example:

Of the survey respondents, 75.4% expect spending for digital/online initiatives to increase, compared to 42.5% for direct marketing spend, 36.5% for PR budgets, and 32.5% for ad budgets.

Check out the ad and PR numbers. Interesting, no? Mark Hass, CEO of MS&L, attributes the percentages to the kind of interaction or conversation that marketers are having nowadays with their customers. [Note: I'm paraphrasing here.] Imagine advertising being a monologue and traditional PR being a dialogue. More and more marketers are realizing that digital media enables them to engage in a multi-logue with their target audience. Totally makes sense to me.

Here's another interesting tidbit from the survey:

When asked which disciplines would be most likely to be cut if forced to do so because of economic conditions, digital was the least likely with only 11.1% of respondents noting that they'd cut budgets for those initiatives. Advertising was the most likely to be cut (58.3%), followed by point-of-sale marketing (55.6%), direct marketing (41.3%), and PR (35.3%).

PRWeek attributes these figures to the flexibility digital media offers marketers - especially in a shaky economic environment. Gone are the days of a six-month media buy that requires up-front payment. Digital media enables marketers to make changes on the fly and gather specific metrics.

The bottomline? The love affair between digital media and marketing still seems pretty steamy.

Check out the full article and download a copy of the report here.

Forget the "lucky duck" - he's one lucky dog!

One of the great benefits of working at GroundFloor Media is that dogs are a welcome part of the office environment. It's not unusual to see Maddie Love, Simba Tooley or Maxwell Wills running around our office space - so today when I felt a little guilty about leaving my dog, Otis, home for the next week while I'm off on vacation, it took only a second to realize that I'd simply bring him to work so we could spend the whole day together.

Little did I know that today is Take Your Dog to Work Day! Not only have Otis and I spent the day together, but he's already been the star of a photo shoot, eaten two cookies, received multiple belly rubs, chased a gingerbread girl toy, and had about three naps. Although there isn't much time at GroundFloor Media for chasing balls or squirrels, Otis is currently napping under my desk while I type away - just one more reason that GroundFloor Media qualifies as the best place to work in Denver!

Getting Grounded through AirLife

One of my favorite things about working at GroundFloor Media – besides the awesome people with whom I get to hang out every day – is our Get Grounded program. Through this program, I was recently able to support a charity near to my heart, Friends of AirLife. Each year, Friends of AirLife hosts the Annual AirLife Memorial Run/Walk and EMS Celebration in honor of the everyday heroes in EMS and those EMS providers who have lost their lives.

The race was created in memory of Pete Albplanalp, Beth Barber, Leslie Feldmann and Julie Olmstead, who died on Dec. 14, 1997, in an AirLife helicopter crash and related car accident. Since its inception, the race has evolved to include honoring the fallen heroes of air medical, EMS, fire and police, as well as the beloved Friends of AirLife founder and good friend of mine, Jim Ulrich, who lost his battle with leukemia in Dec. 2006.

Being able to take time to support this event each year as a committee volunteer is extremely important to me, as is the support I receive from GroundFloor Media in order to do so. Here’s how the Get Grounded program works in a nutshell… GroundFloor Media team members are able to volunteer for qualifying nonprofit organizations during normal business hours. And – if our volunteerism takes place after hours, GroundFloor Media donates funds to the nonprofit on behalf of our efforts at the end of each year. Not a bad way to support the charity of your choice!

Beyond the Get Grounded program, my friends at GroundFloor Media turn out to support the event and the Friends of AirLife, which truly means more than they ever know!

~Ramonna

Looking For Love?

If you've followed my blog posts, you know that I'm typically GroundFloor Media's resident foodie. But, if you've read my real story you'll know that another of my real passions is the health and well-being of animals. That's why it's my pleasure to break away from food for just a minute to remind you all that June is Adopt-a-Cat month. If you're looking for love in the form of a faithful, feisty, friendly or fearless companion like Salty Reilly (pictured here), a cat might just be the right fit for you! In Denver, you can visit the Dumb Friends League (www.ddfl.org) or any number of other area shelters to learn more about the many cats who are at just waiting to find the right family to call their own. GroundFloor Media is working with the Dumb Friends League and a handful of other feline-focused partners to launch an exciting cat-related campaign that we look forward to revealing later this summer. In the meantime, let us know if you add a feline family member to your home this month!

Tomatoes Create Headlines

As PR practitioners, we are always reminding our clients about the need for a crisis communications plan. No matter the industry – healthcare, technology, restaurant or education – you can never predict when a crisis will hit, or what the crisis will be. On June 4, in a move to ensure the health and safety of its customers, GroundFloor Media client Qdoba Mexican Grill pulled raw tomatoes from its menu in response to a reported salmonella outbreak among certain varieties of tomatoes.

Kudos to Qdoba for jumping on this issue before it became a media headliner! Together with the client, GroundFloor Media had time to help craft messaging and developed signage surrounding the preventative measure – and sure enough, the phones started ringing. Thanks to a fantastic partnership with our client and a willingness to drop everything and walk in lock-step, not only have we navigated a sea of nationwide media inquiries, the combined GroundFloor Media/Qdoba team actually maintained a sense of humor and, dare I say, is comfortably prepared to tackle the next crisis that comes our way.

If you’re contemplating adding a crisis communications plan to your “PR toolbox”, keep in mind these basic principles:

1. Develop your key message(s) and stick to them
2. Respond to the media as quickly as possible, but take time to gather the facts before answering
3. Follow through on commitments to answer additional questions the media may have
4. Utilize your corporate Web site to disseminate information to key audiences

Viral Video Done Right

I'm a big fan of the blog NewTeeVee.com. If you haven't visited it before, it offers a great perspective on the online video industry - part video critic, part industry reporter and almost always entertaining and newsworthy. Whenever a GroundFloor Media client mentions that they're interested in producing an online viral video, I always point them to NewTeeVee for a good dose of online video realism.

Last week, NewTeeVee blogger Liz Shannon Miller posted a great example of "Viral Marketing Done Right". The video shows an impromtu musical number at an airport and only briefly mentions the actual advertiser (lastminute.com).

"What makes it so effective?" asks Liz. In her own words..."Three things:

1. It doesn’t lie. While the video does not state up front what product it’s advertising, it doesn’t claim to be “found footage,” or an amateur recording, or anything other than what it is. In fact, it makes a big deal of mentioning up front that the production was put together by a large team of professionals. At the end, the lastminute.com text pops up, clear as anything. It isn’t exactly straightforward, but there’s no attempt at deception.
2. It’s really fun to watch. The performers are talented, the songwriting is tolerable and the hidden cameras do a great job of catching the surprised looks of those watching. I was more entertained by these three minutes than I was by the entirety of Chris Columbus’s Rent.
3. It’s relevant to the product being advertised. By capturing the looks on people’s faces as they’re ambushed by live performance, the ad is a poignant reminder of the joy of the theater. Lastminute.com is a ticket-selling service, and the swift URL drop at the end of the video connects the message to the product."

Social Media... In Plain English

Thanks to Scott Monty's Social Media blog, I just discovered Common Craft's "in plain English" digital shorts. If you haven't seen one yet, stop whatever you're doing and go check out their Web site. Using a format they call "Paperworks", the smarties at Common Craft explain subjects (mostly related to social media) "in plain English" using short, unique and understandable videos. For example, "Podcasting in plain English", "Twitter in plain English", etc. And the best part? They share them on YouTube for free. They also offer downloadable versions that are licensed for the workplace.

Here is one of my faves. "Social Media in Plain English"




Love it.

Generational Guessing?

As marketers, most of us understand the importance of identifying our target audiences BEFORE we actually begin our marketing campaigns. Ideally, these types of discovery sessions should take place before you even think about a campaign idea or strategy since the message or tactic can vary greatly depending on the audience. However, I'll be the first to admit that sometimes it can be a little tricky to actually narrow down your target demographic(s) - especially when so many demographics seem to overlap. Baby Boomers, Seniors, Generation X, Generation Y, Millennials... the list is endless.

This week, Ad Age's Kenneth Gronbach has a great primer on the top six U.S. generational markets and ideas for targeting them. If you're about to begin a audience discovery session (or even if you're in the midst of one), I'd highly recommend this article as a good place to start.

An Oscar-Worthy Promotion

Over the holiday weekend I was one of the millions of movie-goers who patiently waited in line to see "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Since I had been eagerly awaiting its release for months, I was all too happy to be consumed by all the pre-release hype... and there seemed to be no shortage of it. For the entire week leading up to its debut it was almost impossible to avoid Indy - reviews, sneak peeks, trailers, banner ads and countless appearances by the stars on every show from Good Morning America to SNL. It was obvious that Paramount was going to exhaust every possible marketing avenue and surprise, social media was no exception.

According to ClickZ, "Starting Wednesday morning, Paramount offered Facebook users a chance to send their friends a small digital version of Indy's iconic brown hat as a "virtual gift." While some gifts require a $1 fee, the Fedora was offered as a free sponsored gift from the studio. The Fedoras became available at 4:30am on Wednesday morning, the day before the movie hit theaters. By 3pm, all 250,000 had sold out."

And it didn't end there...

"Each Fedora gift provided a link to the movie's Facebook page, where fans could find local showings, read other users' reviews, post messages, download widgets and other applications, and view stills from the film's production. The page also included a space for users to upload videos and photos of their own, including an instructional video on "How to Crack a Whip Like Indy" and the infamous Annie Leibovitz Vanity Fair photos of Miley Cryus with a brown Fedora superimposed on her head. Paramount also ran a series of display ads on Facebook pointing users to the page. As of Thursday afternoon, the page had more than 62,000 fans."

Promoting movies on social networks is nothing new, but Paramount's campaign was impressive. They knew the buzz was building and did a great job cultivating it through the social networks with fairly straightforward viral tactics.

In my opinion, Indy came up a little short during this installment, but I still enjoyed seeing him crack his whip and make his trademark one-liners. Regardless, I have to commend Paramount on a great promotional performance. (Although I'm still waiting for my friend request from Indy to arrive.)

Struggling with measuring your online marketing initiatives?

In recent months, I've heard a number of marketers express frustration with the task of gathering solid and relevant metrics for measuring their online marketing initiatives. While it seems to be the most popular tool, Google Analytics is often times the target of our clients' ire. In a recent article in AdAge, Google's new 'Analytics Evangelist' offers up his own opinions about how marketers should be measuring their online programs. He's not shy about using the word "sucks" when referring to traditional measurement methods and he makes an interesting plea for marketers to focus more on the "why" of their online marketing campaigns. If you're one of the many who often find themselves cursing Google Analytics, it's worth the read.

The Future of Social Networking? Let's hear it for the ladies!

Pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about social networking (who uses it, why they use it and where the industry is headed) can be found in BusinessWeek's new special report on social networking. Perhaps the most interesting part of the report, is the article outlining social media's gender gap and how women are the driving force behind the increasing popularity of social networks. Quoting data from a Rapleaf study, the article states:

Among twentysomethings, women and men are just as likely to be members of social networks. Facebook, MySpace, and Flixster are extraordinarily popular. But we found that young women are much more active on these sites then young men. And men above 30—especially married men—aren't even joining social networks. With the notable exceptions of LinkedIn users and venture capitalists in the Bay Area "friending" everyone on Facebook, married men are not hanging out on social networks. Married women, however, are joining social networks in droves. In fact, women between ages 35 and 50 are the fastest-growing segment, especially on MySpace.

P.S. Don't forget to check out my favorite part of the report, the social media IQ quiz!

Reflecting on the Sabre Awards Dinner

As I traveled back from Manhattan, I had some time on the plane to write about some exciting GroundFloor Media news… GroundFloor Media is the “Best Boutique Agency to Work For,” and I was fortunate to accept this honor for the firm at the Holmes Report’s annual Sabre Awards dinner in NYC. Following a survey of close to 5,000 employees at approximately 80 of the leading public relations firms in the United States, four agencies were named the 2007 Best Agencies to Work For. We’re proud to be in the company of the best large agency, Fleishman-Hillard; the best midsize agency, Text 100; and the best small agency, Davies.

The press announcement from the Holmes Report cited GroundFloor Media’s low six percent attrition rate and high employee satisfaction, along with positive comments from our employees – who were surveyed for the award – stating that the atmosphere at GroundFloor Media is “very positive, empowering, supportive, flexible” and another citing “The people. GroundFloor Media has a team of only senior-level PR pros that respect each other, spend time with each other outside of work, encourage one another and deliver excellent client work.” It is truly an honor to receive such an award based on employee feedback, because GroundFloor Media strives to be THE agency top PR pros want to work for. Part of our culture is rooted in giving back to our community, so the fact that we won an Iron Sabre award for our Get Grounded community involvement program is also very exciting!

It was also an honor to meet other PR practitioners from agencies around the country and to hear about their best practices and challenges alike. I was fortunate to sit at a “winning” table with delightful colleagues from rbb Public Relations in Miami, 360 Public Relations in Boston and The Red Consultancy in San Francisco and New York. Each agency represented at our table won an award for their unique attributes, emphasizing how diverse the world of public relations has become. It was truly an inspiring event.

~Ramonna

Taking your investment cues from social media?

I attended the Finovate show a couple weeks ago (kind of a DEMO for innovative financial technology companies) and the main theme throughout every presentation was social media. Practically every company had figured out a way to incorporate some kind of social media element (e.g. blogging, social networking, widgets) into their product, although some did it much better than others. For many of the products, the integration of social media made sense, but I have to admit that I was a little puzzled when a few of the personal investment tools started evangelizing their own social networks. Even though I am a social media junkie, I am very cautious about where I gather my investment advice (probably because I don't have much money to actually invest with), so I tend to rely on the experts, namely my financial advisor and the guys at Barrons. Personally, I just don't feel super confident about taking stock advice from Joe Schmoe and his smiley face avatar, but apparently I'm one of the few.

An April 2008 survey by Cogent Research found that US investors are highly engaged in social media, and their investment decisions are influenced accordingly. The study found that 25% of US online adults are engaged in social media specifically related to personal finance and investing. Furthermore, almost two-thirds of high-net-worth investors - defined as those with $100,000 or more in investable assets - claimed online peer-generated content about personal investing and finance has an influence on their financial purchasing behaviors and decisions. You can read more about the study on eMarketer.

This might spell confusion for the likes of Chuck (i.e. Charles Schwab), but it definitely helps clear up my Finovate puzzlement. I guess I'm going to have to start paying closer attention to those recommendations from Joe and his smiley face after all.